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On behalf of our activist community, I urge you to contact your senators and ask them to cosponsor limited government legislation that has been introduced the in the Senate. For purposes of FreedomWorks’ 2018 Congressional Scorecard, cosponsors will be treated as YES votes.

The Obama administration was riddled with regulations and red tape that put federal oversight on everything from ponds to bathrooms to cow flatulence. In fact, President Obama reached a record high number of pages in the Federal Register (the federal journal of regulations) during his last full year in office.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) have introduced legislation that would repeal one of the tools that give Congress greater oversight of actions taken by federal agencies. Passed in 1996 as part of the Contract with American Advancement Act, the Congressional Review Act provided Congress with power to canceled rules finalized and published by federal agencies.

Today Jason Pye, FreedomWorks' director of public policy and legislative affairs, sent Senate offices the following letter supporting the REINS Act, S. 21, sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). This bill requires that agencies’ major rules cannot go into effect until they pass the House and Senate and are signed by the president.

On behalf of our activist community, I urge you to contact your senators and urge them to cosponsor the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, S. 21, introduced by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). The bill has been assigned to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

In recent days, Congress has targeted several midnight rules, those finalized and published in the final days of the Obama administration, through the Congressional Review Act. The effort is part of the rediscovery of Article I of the Constitution and the separation of powers, as well as the threats the regulatory state presents to the economy. In this issue brief, FreedomWorks offers background on the Congressional Review Act, the law's deficiencies, how to give it teeth through the passage of the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act.